


Breaking Point

by MilkyMint



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, But then it's back to hope because I say so, Comfort, M/M, as a treat, depressive thoughts and allusions to suicide, martin can have little a breakdown, post 160, stubborn optimism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22442074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkyMint/pseuds/MilkyMint
Summary: The Lonely is a safe place to be post-apocalypse. The alternatives become less and less appealing.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 9
Kudos: 71





	Breaking Point

Martin always thought he liked long walks. He doesn't anymore. A seasoned hiker might make their way from the highlands to London in under two weeks, but that was before the apocalypse, and neither of them are seasoned hikers.  
They had to abandon the car when the road turned into tary sludge, walking on and frequently off narrow trails instead, changing routes every time Jon picks up an incoming threat. He puts an arm around Martin whenever he lets his sight wander further than their immediate surroundings. A fixed point to return to. So when the ground crumbles beneath their feet, Martin manages to pull Jon in close before the dirt closes around them.  
For one moment they are trapped, too constricted to even scream, and all Martin can do is hold even tighter.  
Then the silence is broken by the sound of crashing waves. Martin opens his eyes and looks around. Sure enough, they are in the Lonely. The fog is cold, the sand is damp, and he can't see further than a few feet.  
He can see Jon though, clumps of earth sticking in his hair, looking up at him with open panic.  
“Are you okay?” Jon asks, his hands digging in so hard Martin can feel them even through his thick jacket.  
Martin takes a moment to consider this. He can feel the familiar emptiness trying to take hold. A faint whisper under his thoughts, telling him that he is all alone, that he’s a burden, that no one will miss him, that he'd do everyone a favor if he just disappeared.  
But he can tell the feeling isn't his, not really. It's the memory of grief and despair, not the thing itself.  
“Yes,” he finally answers. “Don't let go though.”  
Jon takes hold of one hand and they untangle awkwardly, careful not to break contact.  
Once they are just holding hands, Martin starts walking with determination, gently pulling Jon along the empty shore.

“Do you know where you're going?” Jon asks.  
“No, but there's this... it's not a pull exactly, just this vague feeling that if we keep going this way we'll get somewhere. But that's something, right? Unless you see anything?”  
“I know where we got in, but that only leads back into the Buried.”  
“Let's keep going then.”  
They keep walking until the damp sand finally gives way to damp grass, and they are standing under a leafless tree, rising hills on two sides, and open fields on the others. There’s a thin line of ancient knee-high brickwork acros the hills, and something clicks in Martin’s memory.

“Oh, I know this!” he says excitedly, the recognition sparking a giddiness that probably wouldn't be as strong, if it wasn't contrasted with the last hour of unchanging scenery. “We went here on a field trip in school. I had my first kiss right here! We're on Hadrian's Wall! I thought it would take us at least two more days! That's amazing!“  
Jon isn't listening, he's scanning their surroundings, the usual anxiety back in full, and the worried expression doesn't change when he focuses on Martin.  
“Right. But let's not do that again.”  
“But it worked!”  
“Because we happened to be close enough to a place you had a connection to. What if next time we end up in the Lonely with no way out? What if we go and get stranded?”  
“What if we stay and get murdered?”  
“Martin.”  
“Jonathan.”

Jon looks so offended at that, Martin can’t help but grin. But Jon just grows more concerned.  
“This isn't- this isn't safe.”  
“I know. But it's an option.”  
“A very last resort option.”  
Martin is getting frustrated, he just saved their lives and Jon's acting like he's not aware of the risks he’s taking.  
“Yeah, I’m not going to waltz into the Lonely every time I want to take a nap, Jon. Come on, there was a hostel around here somewhere. Maybe we can sleep indoors for a change.” He starts walking into what he hopes is the right direction, and pretends he doesn’t notice Jon’s hand shifting in his, with Jon’s fingers coming to rest on his wrist, right on his pulse.

Of course once you know the way to the very last resort, vacationing there becomes a much more attractive prospect.  
A many limbed thing of the flesh that might have been human once, but doesn't have enough consciousness left to be compelled by Jon, an error of judgement he only realises when the creature is barreling towards them and doesn't stop at his words.  
Martin pulls them into the Lonely, and they emerge ten miles east, next to the skeletal remains of a lost hiker, who died knowing no one would notice them missing for months.

Knowing the pack of hunters circling them in doesn't help avoiding them, same as the wildfire rushing towards them in the woods.  
The detours take them off course, but they are safe. Jon doesn't say anything, but he doesn't let go of Martin's hand for hours afterwards.

It's when they escape the hive that was a flock, after about twenty minutes of walking across the beach, that Martin feels his hand become slightly less, Jon's fingers tangling with something more fog than flesh. It lasts barely a second, but Jon is immediately on him, the hand holding Martin's now tight enough to hurt, the other on Martin's cheek, and Martin's name tumbling from his mouth like a mantra.  
Martin brings his own free hand up and gently pulls Jon’s away so he can speak.  
“It’s nothing,” he says, and adds with more emphasis: ” I'm fine.”  
“You are not fine!”  
Martin can see that Jon is worried, but he can’t find the words right now. They need to get out, there’ll be time to psychoanalyze later. So instead of answering he tries to walk on. Jon stays rooted to the spot.  
“C'mon, let's get moving.” Martin pulls on their hands lightly, but Jon doesn’t budge.  
“Martin, please just talk to me.” The crackle behind the words is almost drowned out by the waves, Martin barely feels the compulsion, he probably could fight it, but it's there and Jon looks horrified.  
“I'm sorry.”  
Jon says it so quietly, Martin can’t even hear the words. He just makes them out by the shape of his mouth, the guilt in his eyes.

Jon looks tired. Something about this place still cuts him off from some of the new powers of the archive. Martin can see the lines on his face more clearly, how Jon draws his shoulders in against the cold, and how the backpack is obviously too heavy for him.  
He looks more like Jon than he has in weeks, and a cruel part of Martin wants to tell him that.  
“I know.” He says instead.  
“But we really can't stay here,” he adds with a look down at their feet, which have already sunken a good inch into the sand.  
“We'll walk and talk.”

Jon doesn’t resist as he pulls him along now, and Martin tries to make sense of emotions Jon’s command is rapidly unspooling.  
He settles on the one thing he knows for certain.  
“It's getting harder to go back.”  
“Why?”  
It's a simple question, but it cuts down to something Martin doesn't want to think about. So he digs deeper and is somewhat surprised to find annoyance.

“I don't know, I didn't exactly get a manual! Maybe with you here, I don’t have any anchors left out there. Maybe I just don't want to leave. I mean, what's there to get back for?”  
He doesn't wait for a reply, the damn is broken and the flood is washing ugly thoughts to the surface like driftwood.  
“And I know that's stupid! I know we've got to keep going! I know we have to try! I keep telling myself that we have to! But I can't actually believe in any of it. With everything we've seen, and don't think I don't know you're steering us around the worst of it, what's the point? ”

There's anger now, coiling around him along with the ever present fog.  
Martin is used to the anger. He's practised at ignoring it, pushing it away, burying it deep down until he can pretend it was never there to begin with. But right now the hot anger is better than the cold nothing that's taken hold throughout his bones, so he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and lets the anger seep into all the little cracks in his thoughts. He feels the anger for his childhood, his lost teenage years, for a future that was ripped away the moment he finally thought that maybe things would turn out alright.

“I mean, I had a three week vacation from my awful life, and just to keep things in balance, here's the fucking apocalypse!”  
The anger burns in his lungs, and it isn't supposed to, not here. It would be so much easier to just walk into the water, let the current pull him away from all this anger and grief and pain.

“Prawn Bhuna” Jon says with a conviction that cuts through Martin’s fogged brain like sunlight.  
“What?”  
Jon is looking at him, of course he is, but his expression is calm and earnest, and he speaks with the same confidence as if he was given a lecture.  
“You wanted to try the Prawn Bhuna at that place with the blue door. They were out when we went there for lunch, and you said we’d have to come back and try it some other time. We never got around to it, but that’s something to go back for.”

Martin only vaguely remembers that. It must have been one of the times he dragged Jon out of the archives, after Prentiss, but back before everything went horribly wrong. Or, he corrects himself, when they didn’t know that everything had already gone horribly wrong. That Sasha wasn’t even Sasha any more, and that they’d all crossed a point of no return, that no amount of trying, or caring, was ever going to fix it.  
“That place is probably burned down by now,” he says glumly. “Or crawling with monster slugs.”  
“Maybe,” Jon admits. “But we won't know til we get there. And even if, we can find a cookbook. Figure it out. Hell, let’s raid a Waterstones. You got hooked on that time travel romance series, let's get the next one.”  
“Since when are you the optimist?”  
“I figured it was my turn.”  
“So what, now you believe that we'll just put the world back together and live happily ever after?” another vicious thought, one that Martin has directed at himself often, whenever he's let his guard down enough for hope to creep in. Jon squeezes his hand.  
“Of course not. I'm not an idiot. This is only going to end in tragedy. But until then, I'm going to chose to believe that there will be something to make it worth it.”  
Jon takes a deep breath and continues:  
“And on the off chance we both make it through, there’s things I want to do. With you, I mean. I want to go to the beach.”  
“Uhm-”  
“A real beach, “ Jon clarifies “not this pretentious metaphor. With sunshine, and seagulls, and ice cream, and annoying children.”  
Martin tries to picture that, and while the visions of demonic seagulls are a distraction, they are not the biggest problem.  
“I literally can not imagine you at the beach.”  
“Oh, I love it. I’ve got one of those striped bathing suits and an enormous sun hat.”  
“Bullshit!”  
“Hey, if you want to prove me wrong, you’ll have to go.”  
Martin has to chuckle at that, and with every breath the anger fades. What stays behind is a question.  
“You think we have any chance of surviving?”  
“No idea. But I'm not going down easy. I want to hold onto whatever humanity I’ve got left, but if I have to I’ll...I’m going to do what it takes.”  
Martin frowns.  
“You realise that’s exactly what I’m doing, right? You don’t have the monopoly on martyrdom.”  
“No, I know. But if I remember that there's something left to do, that- That might stop me from doing anything reckless without a plan. Which I’m sure you appreciate. And I’d appreciate it if you did the same."  
“I’ll try.” Martin concedes.  
“There's one thing I can promise you,” Jon says after a short silence.  
"And what's that?" Martin asks.  
”We will punch Elias.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Right in his stupid smug face.”  
“I’d like that.”

Martin thinks back on dates he's had, and dates he's wanted to have. There’s not too much left to check off, even his daydreams barely got more fanciful than ‘have a nice day at the park’.  
And he already played out the ‘run away to a cottage in scotland with the man of your dreams’ fantasy, and he never even considered that and Jon in the same sentence.  
But there's one thing that had always been on his list of stereotypical couple activities that Jon would perfectly fit into.

“I want to go to the Natural History Museum,” Martin declares.  
“Deal. Fair warning though, I was an obnoxious museum visitor even before all this,” Jon says gesturing to his eyes. “I can only guess how bad it’s going to be now.”  
“I think I can handle you being obnoxious,” Martin says, and his foot catches on a rock in the road.  
By the time he processes that, they are standing in an empty street.  
“Where are we?”  
Jon goes very still for a moment. “Housing development,” he answers. “Construction started 2014, abandoned when the head of the investment board was caught lowering the body of his wife in the concrete foundation of house 32.”  
“Urgh.”  
“Yeah. But with legal battles and the PR nightmare, it’s been left empty ever since, so it’s probably safe enough for now. Do you have any connection to it?”  
“Don't think so. Probably just a really lonely place.” He scans the rows of unfinished houses. They are too far out even for graffiti on their concrete walls. A few of them have roofs though, and two at the end of the road seem actually finished. Model homes, probably.  
Martin sways for a moment, and he realises how exhausted he is. Being emotionally open in the Lonely apparently comes at a steep cost.  
Jon gets one arm around him and steadies him with renewed strength.

“I want to sleep for eight hours.” Martin mumbles into Jon’s hair.  
“Preferably while my boyfriend watches over me.”

Jon smiles, and gently steers him along to one of the finished houses.  
“I think I can make that happen.”


End file.
